Artificial Leaf Turns Water into Energy for Cheap

Researchers at MIT have created an artificial leaf that they say can generate energy 10 times more efficiently than actual plants.

Researchers at MIT have created an artificial leaf that they say can generate energy 10 times more efficiently than actual plants. The tiny solar cell is also said to be made out of inexpensive materials and, with sufficient water, could power an entire house.

Dr. Daniel Nocera led a team of chemists to create a tiny solar cell that mimics and improves upon regular photosynthesis. The "leaf," which is about the size of a credit card (and looks nothing like a leaf, apparently), takes water and separates it into oxygen and hydrogen, which can then be used as an energy source.

"A practical artificial leaf has been one of the Holy Grails of science for decades," Nocera says in a press release. "We believe we have done it."

Nocera's solar cell isn't the first artifical leaf, but it's has three things that make it stand out: it's made out of inexpensive materials that are widely available, it works simply, and its output doesn't quickly degrade. All those factors make the tech decidedly more practical than previous stabs at artificial photsynthetic power sources, and Nocera hopes his team's invention will become a go-to energy source for the third world, where it could provide a house with all-day power on just one gallon of water.

"The artificial leaf shows particular promise as an inexpensive source of electricity for homes of the poor in developing countries. Our goal is to make each home its own power station," he says. "One can envision villages in India and Africa not long from now purchasing an affordable basic power system based on this technology."

It's not as easy as putting the leaf in a bucket of water and occasionally refilling, however; the leaf would need to work with a fuel cell to store and process the hydrogen produced, making the idea a bit harder to implement, since fuel cells aren't in widespread residential use.

Nocera claims, though, that his solar tech is 10 times more efficient than regular photosynthesis, and he says that's just the beginning.

"Nature is powered by photosynthesis, and I think that the future world will be powered by photosynthesis as well in the form of this artificial leaf."